Lost Tribe Sound's: Best Musical Discoveries of 2017/2018

Before we begin with the incredible onslaught of tunes Lost Tribe Sound has lined up for this year, including 4 vinyl, 2 CD, and 2 cassettes, we wanted to take a moment and honor the artists and labels that keep us sane in our down time. Many of the these artists and labels receive very little recognition or compensation for the hard work and sheer beauty they continue to bring forth to their fans.

Here are Lost Tribe Sound’s: Best Musical Discoveries of 2017-2018. It’s a list that has been in works for two years now, and if we put it off any longer it would get shelved for another year. You’ll find it is not a conventional Best of List, as we abhore the music industries linear time table for reviewing and promoting music, as if it were a gallon of milk, going bad a few weeks after its release. No way, great music sticks with you, it doesn’t expire. It should be readily talked about in any year, especially releases like these, that often get left completely undiscovered. So this is a collection of our favorite music we discovered between 2017 through the end of 2018, some of the releases might have come earlier than those years, but nobody told us about them.

We’ve put together a 3 hour mix, featuring one song from each of our favorite albums on this list. Highly suggest streaming it, as it gathers some choice selections from each album, otherwise, you can pick ala carte through each album and where to buy them direct from the artist or label below.

There is so much we could say about each one of these albums if we had the time. And there is no denying, often times the music we fall in love with in our personal collection follows the very same principles that Lost Tribe Sound looks for in its releases. It's music that leaves its tattered edges proudly in place, acoustic instrumentation blended seamlessly with dirty mechanics, timeworn sound worlds rooted in the muck and mire of the present. And it generally falls along the lines of bizarrely beautiful rhythm-driven, electro-acoustic music.

So you’ll find a heavy dose of esoteric, organic, thump and strum, and other heart-string pulling oddities in this collection. In retrospect, 2017 was an incredible year for dark, brooding music and other low register instrumentation (e.g. ARI BALOUZIAN, ERLEND APNESETH TRIO, or LA TÈNE). Whereas, 2018 found us a little more all over the board, some going for soul-warming perfection like MONARCH MTN, LES HALLES and SANDRO PERRI and some traversed a more twisted, but no less effective path to salvation like C. DIAB, THE ALBERTUS SEBA, and AARON MARTIN & TILMAN ROBINSON

Each one of these albums we have personally listened to many times, and have supported with our own money. We believe that financially supporting the music we love (not just streaming it), goes along way to helping more of what we love get produced. Definitely hope you find something new, interesting and worth supporting on this list. We’ve only seen a few of these albums make it onto multiple best of lists, review spots, and get due praise, the rest are still much in need of having their day in the sun.

This list is in no particular order. Enjoy each of these albums on their own and in our mix. All the best to these amazing artists and labels in the coming year and beyond. Please keep doing what you’re doing, as it is incredible, and there are folks listening and ready to support whatever comes next from your end!